China’s youngest donor: 25-day-old baby saves 10-month-old boy’s life

A 25-day-old baby became the youngest donor in China after his liver was transplanted to a 10-month-old toddler suffering from hepatic encephalopathy, News Express reports.The operation was recently carried out at the The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou after the baby boy, named Xiaoyu, fell critically ill.Xiaoyu and his twin brother were born on May 30, shortly after which he was diagnosed with complex congenital heart disease. “Doctors told us it was absolutely not a good sign,” Xiaoyu’s father, surnamed Liu, said in reports.Liu brought Xiaoyu from Jiangxi to Guangzhou’s Women and Children’s Medical Center for treatment on June 20. Four days later, the child was revived from severe hypoxemia but due to symptoms of heart failure, he couldn’t recover. The doctors told Xiaoyu’s family that the boy would not likely make it. His parents decided then to donate Xiaoyu’s organs to help another patient.“I don’t want my child to come and leave the world this way. I hope he can leave something for the world and last his life in another way,” Liu said.In the afternoon of June 24, in the presence of coordinators from the Provincial Red Cross, surgeons from The Third Affiliated Hospital removed Xiaoyu’s liver and completed the transplant operation. According to the doctors, the organ receiver was a 10-month-old boy suffering from hepatic encephalopathy and liver transplantation was the only thing that could help him.Experts cited in the report added that it’s very difficult to perform a transplant operation with such a young child’s liver because the blood vessels in the organ and bile duct are as silky as the wings of cicada. The operation lasted five hours and 30 minutes. The baby patient woke up and started to breathe, meaning that the operation has proven so far to be a success. By Lucy Liu